When I discovered that my mother-in-laws corn bread was (as I suspected) in fact Jiffy Mix, I just added a bit more flour (now use a 50/50 flour/corn meal) and a small amount of sugar. Since DH doesn't like really sweet corn bread and claims not to like it sweetened at all, I just add at most a tablespoon, often left. He suddenly liked the corn bread better so that seems to be the real difference.
For kids, I think the extra flour plus honey would be a good way to make the corn bread more cake like. Another thing I discovered by accident is that yogurt makes the lightest and smoothest cornbread you can think of. It takes a lot of yogurt, but its worth it.
expatriate Californian living in rural Ireland with husband, dogs, horses. garden and many, many cats